Call it the great “Etch A Sketch” controversy of 2012. Fresh from a solid victory in Illinois, Mitt Romney's Republican presidential campaign got caught up in a flap on Wednesday over an aide's comments his opponents said made clear Romney is not a real conservative. Senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom gave Romney rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich grist for criticism in his reply to a question during a CNN interview on whether Romney has had to tack so far to the right it could hurt him in a general election match-up against Democratic President Barack Obama. Fehrnstrom said Romney's situation is much like an Etch A Sketch, a popular children's toy used for drawing that can simply be shaken to erase the image scrolled onto it. “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again,” Fehrnstrom said. The controversy overshadowed to some extent Romney's growing confidence. After his Illinois win, it seems far harder for his rivals to catch him in the race for the right to face Obama in the Nov. 6 election.
